hi there. i'm stephanie ruhle. it's monday, august 24th. let's get smarter. it's a huge monday. we've got wildfires out west, two tropical storms threatening the south and the race for the president entering a new phase. all of this happening in the middle of a global pandemic. we've got it all covered for you this morning. front and center this hour, the republican national convention starting right this very minute in charlotte, north carolina. in just one hour from now, the postmaster general, louis dejoy, testifies again in front of a congressional committee. this time it is in person in the house of representatives where

democrats hold the gavel this time. monica alba is in charlotte, north carolina, and geoff bennett at the white house. he's been covering the u.s. postal service for us. monica, any way you slice it, the rnc has a tough act to follow, following last week's democratic performance. how are they going to do it? >> exactly, steph. you could argue they also have an advantage because they were able to see what the democratic counterparts did and modify based off that. we're here in charlotte where you may see what resembles the most normal convention in an unconventional year. there will be delegates gathering in person later this morning to do an official roll call to renominate the president and vice president. no word on whether we'll have calamari but you'll have speakers from each individual state taking a couple of minutes to talk about why they feel that way. the president and vice president are expected to be in charlotte. it's unclear whether they'll exactly come to the convention center but we believe they'll make an appearance. consider the irony.

the president wanted to move the entire convention away from charlotte because the democratic governor here couldn't guarantee an event without social distancing or masks. that's exactly what you'll see inside that ball room. all of the delegates have to adhere to those coronavirus guidelines. and then later tonight the show really moves to washington, d.c., where all the other events are going to come from. in a highly unusual move, the marquee events will be coming from the white house as a political backdrop. first lady melania trump tomorrow and the president capping off the week with his renomination speech thursday in front of an audience. that's the other major break and departure from what the democrats did. the republicans want to do a lot of their programming live and in front of people. the president was watching so closely he was making adjustments about what he wanted to see. and overall, the campaign signals this will be a more optimistic forward-looking message which is a little harder to square with rhetoric we've seen from the president himself on the campaign trail at times appearing quite dark and divisive as you know, steph. this kicks off officially here

in charlotte in just a little bit. >> all right. monica. geoff, let's turn to you. postmaster general dejoy is testifying today. this is obviously going to be a lot different than we saw friday. >> yeah. >> the senate ran the show on friday. republicans were basically defending him. but even democrats didn't demand that many answers. they took their time talk, talk, talking. is today going to be different? there's a lot of questions we actually need answers to. >> house democrats said after friday's hearing they were wholly unsatisfied with mr. dejoy's answers. so we can expect that when both dejoy and the usps chairman of the board of governors, robert duncan, go before this committee today, they'll face a far less favorable reception. look, there are some 90 house democrats who have already called for dejoy's removal. so we can expect house democrats today will press for details. both dejoy, the usps board of governors, they've all said the postal service is committed to fully handling election mail on

time. well, the obvious question there is, how can that be? how can that be when mr. dejoy has not committed to restoring the cuts he's already made and denies cutting overtime even though documents we obtained on friday show that his policy changes have had the same effect. now committee investigators have been doing their homework and one of the things the committee released on saturday was a document, a powerpoint presentation that mr. dejoy was briefed on last week. this is an internal usps document which we have. and what you can see is that service slowed in july. there is a dip. we can put that image up on the screen if we have it. in july. the average, blue, gray, yellow lines, that is postal service from priority mail, regular mail, express mail. and that dip happened in july after dejoy took office and after he implemented those changes. what's also interesting is that that document squares with what i've been hearing anecdotally from postal workers and americans who have been dependent on on-time delivery.

i talk to a mail truck delivery guy who said early to mid-july is when this happened. a vietnam combat veteran told me he started waiting two to three weeks for medication around that same time. house democrats are also going to ask how it came to be that dejoy found himself as the postmaster general without unlike his predecessors having any direct experience working for usps. and both my colleague heidi przybyla and i have done a ton of reporting on the role that steven mnuchin played involving himself in this selection process. dejoy, as we all know, is a republican megadonor. at the time of his appointment, responsible for fundraising for the republican national convention where monica is right now. and it's not just that. his effective boss, chairman duncan, who is going to testify today, is listed on the board of a superpac for donald trump's 2020 re-election campaign, steph. so there are a ton of conflicts

here. apparent conflicts democrats want to get to the bottom to notion the unfortunate service delays. >> geoff, thank you. i want to talk to one of those democrats right now. no doubt she'll be doing some serious grilling today. california democratic congresswoman katie porter. she's on the house oversight committee where dejoy will be testifying in a short amount of time. when you watched friday's hearing, even questions from your democratic colleagues, did you leave satisfied -- did you watch satisfied, satisfied that, oh, things are going to change, something is going to get done? >> absolutely not. i asked my staff -- i watched part of the hearing myself and then asked my staff to prepare the five most powerful moments from the hearing. and i literally texted them, this is it? so i think there's a lot of room left for us to ask important questions and hold him accountable. i will tell you that he is a difficult witness. he filibusters. he gives long, rambling answers.

this is somebody who spent a lot of his career as a ceo evading responsibility. so i have spent a lot of time this weekend and last week, this morning, preparing for this hearing. and i'm excited to get answers for the american people. >> given that he is a difficult witness, what do you plan to doing differently? yes, he was asked last week, did you speak directly to president trump or secretary mnuchin. we know full well president trump has been doing this long enough, he's not going to have a direct conversation with the postmaster if he wants him to do something nefarious. >> no, he's definitely going to use others to get his message across, and the question is, is mr. dejoy going to be forthcoming about those conversations? but i think we also have to be focusing on looking forward. not just on looking back. the american people depend on the u.s. postal service, and as you saw in the segment before, delivery is down 9%. we're hearing stories from

veterans. one really important fact, when we attack our united states postal service, mr. mr. dejoy does that, he's also attacking our veterans. 80% of prescriptions fulfilled by the va are delivered by the united states postal service. the postal service employs over 100,000 veterans. over half of whom are people with disabilities, in good high-paying jobs. so we have to press dejoy, not just to explain his past actions but to commit to changing his future actions. >> well, he actually on friday made a whole lot of promises and said he is fully confident that they can make these changes and improve service. do you believe that in any way? and if you don't, what can you do to hold him accountable? >> look, presumably mr. dejoy thought these changes were going to be improvements to our postal service. otherwise, he would not have made them. or he's intentionally trying to hurt the usps. one of those things has to be true. so there's a couple really important things missing from

his announcement. one is that he has not promised to reverse the damaging changes he's already said. he said i'll stop making things worse, but he needs to actually put things back to the status quo. plug back in machines. authorize changes and reversals in his procedures. the second thing is, he said he'll stop making more destructive changes until after the election. but long after the election, people are still going to need to receive their medications, their bills, businesses are still going to need to deliver advertisements. so it doesn't do any good to say, i won't make it worse for the next two months. we need a postmaster general who can improve and fix and stabilize our postal service going forward. >> we can't forget that all of this is going on during the pandemic. he mentioned slowdowns that were caused by coronavirus specifically in cities with high minority populations. he mentioned detroit and philly. do we know enough about how

they'll keep serving those communities, even amidst this pandemic? >> no, we don't. that's why this hearing is so important. i go, as you know, dead last on the committee and i am not worried there will be all the questions answered before it's my turn. there is so much information that we need to get from mr. dejoy, and we need to activate others, including our inspector generals and other people to hold him accountable. i expect this hearing to be the first of several actions that the house is taking to support the postal service. >> don't get discouraged by dead last. that could be saving the best for last depending on how you look at it. >> i love going dead last! i can bat cleanup. >> yeah there you go. cleanup batter. any way in terms of stimulus to get a stand-alone bill that gets some money to people, even if it doesn't get all the other elements that you want? >> stephanie, i certainly hope so because things are really difficult here in our communities. i am coming to you here from california, and people are

really worried. they are worried about the lack of unemployment and those benefits ending. you and i talked last in july about a plan to reopen schools. and yet schooltime has come and gone and we still don't have one. so we absolutely need to be finding a way to get funding to the postal service which the house passed. we hope the senate will take that up. but we need to be providing economic help to american families and that means ongoing unemployment benefits and additional support for working families. >> congresswoman, aka, the cleanup batter, thank you for joining us this morning. we'll certainly be watching the hearing later this morning. i appreciate you joining us. >> thank you. breaking news overnight. protests escalated in kenosha, wisconsin. why? after a police shot a black man in the back several times. protesters confronted police while officers used what appeared to be tear gas and smoke bombs. the family identified the victim

as jacob blake. this morning, blake's father tells nbc news he's out of surgery and stable and the officers involved in the shooting have been put on administrative leave. kenosha police were responding to a domestic incident. the shooting was partially captured on video but it's not clear what happened before or after the recording. before we show it to you, we should warn you it's very disturbing to watch this. [ gunshots ] >> nbc's shaquille brewster is in kenosha. shaq, what in the world do we know about what happened? what's going on this morning? >> well, steph, this morning the outrage continues but so does the cleanup. this is a car dealership. the cars were on fire last night.

this is damage that extends block by block. this -- this dealership alone i'm told there are more than 100 cars damaged. but what sparked all of this was that police shooting that you describe last night. it was the 29th -- the shooting of a 29-year-old man, jacob blake. they arrived and were responding to a domestic incident. that's when they say you see from that video, you see mr. blake walk around the car and the officer fire at him, toward his back more than seven times. at least seven times that you hear in that video. steph, the outrage after that video came out, it went viral on social media. and the outrage after that video was nearly instants. you saw people responding to it, people marching immediately. clashes with police. as they marched down to the courthouse which is all the way on that side of the street there, and as the clashes were happening, you also heard the outrage. marches and chants, people telling my this is an area where there has been tension between police and the community. the wisconsin governor, he

released a statement this morning. he said it came out last night, but he said we stand against excessive use of force and immediate escalation when engaging with black wisconsin e wisconsinites. although we must offer our sympathy, equally important is our action. where do things stand right now? well, there's a state bureau of investigation that's now handling the investigation there. they are the lead in this case. we know the officer who was involved in this shooting, he is placed on administrative leave. i've been told by many people that there will continue to be protests tonight as they assess not only the damage but they assess the reaction and outrage and anger caused by that video. stephanie? >> no doubt. shaq, please, stay safe where you are. sounds as though we can hear he helicopters overhead. we're tracking historic storms and fires with millions of americans in their paths. plus, the fda -- pay

attention to this -- authorizes an emergency treatment for the coronavirus on the eve of the rnc. but here's the big issue. doctors and scientists, health experts say this treatment is far from a breakthrough. was this a political show or is this an actual solution for a pandemic? ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ and mine's unlisted.. try boost® high protein... -with 20 grams of protein for muscle health- -versus only 16 grams in ensure® high protein. and now enjoy boost® high protein in new café mocha flavor. the freestyle libre 14 managday system...etes can be hard. - a continuous glucose monitor - ...makes it easy. easy to check your glucose without fingersticks, and easy to share your data with your doctor.

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now to the latest on the coronavirus pandemic. here are the facts we know this hour. nationwide this morning, the total number of cases has grown to more than 5.7 million. and nearly 178,000 americans have lost their lives since the pandemic began. the financial times reports that the trump administration is considering bypassing normal fda standards so they can fast track a new experimental coronavirus vaccine that comes from the united kingdom. this would be for use in the united states ahead of the presidential election. and president trump announcing

the emergency authorization of convalescent plasma for covid-19 patients. the blood plasma is taken from patients who recovered from the coronavirus and is rich in antibodies. but the evidence -- i'm going to say it -- the evidence has been inconclusive as to how it actually works. joining us for a serious reality check, dr. naheed bedalia, an infectious disease specialist. we need serious fact-checking because we know a lot of this is tangled in politics. let's start with this plasma treatment the president is pushing. what can you tell us about it? >> stephanie, convalescent plasma, which is from survivors of the disease, the yellow part of the blood that's taken out, and it's been used as a treatment for almost 100 years. in some infectious diseases it's been helpful. it others it hasn't pand out. here's the science related to coronavirus. what we know so far is that, you

know, we don't have randomized -- large randomized controlled trials. the smaller ones haven't been powered enough. haven't been enough people to get in those trials to give us an answer. the emergency use authorization which is not the same as an approval announced yesterday. it was based on this program of expanded access for mayo. and generally in public health emergencies, the use of an emergency use authorization is to make it a bit more available if there is promising data. the trouble is the number that the fda was quoting yesterday, the 35%, most people -- it sounds like even the nih looking at the data -- would not have made the same interpretation because of the study we're representing had no placebos. we don't know how it does compared to nothing. what they are saying is in patients who got this serum, they saw this very small difference. 8.7% mortality in those who got it with under three days of symptoms and 11 and change if

more than four days. that's not what most people are looking at. will this be helpful? i hope so. will it be a breakthrough with 35% mortality. i don't think so. i don't think it was enough of a scientific sort of -- new scientific data and if there is new scientific data, the rest of us haven't seen it to make an announcement on a sunday night at the eve of an rnc convention. >> then does it concern you that the fda, right, an agency that most people think, oh, you can trust with the fda does, does it concern you that the fda also issued a press release specifically praising the president, the trump administration, over this plasma treatment? >> i'm going to be honest. i've never seen anything like this. it's just further politization of public health authorities. two bad things that result out of touting results that potentially may not be as promising. one is now the whole country heard the president talk about this breakthrough treatment and we have randomized controlled

trials we have to complete to actually prove whether or not convalescent plasma is effective. how many patients are going to say, no, give me the placebo or i want to be part of the randomized control trial. we put this number out there that may not be accurate. the other part is the appearance, even if the fda was within their right potentially to do this emergency use authorization and again, people will disagree with whether or not there was enough data to do it. but the appearance that the president can basically pressure the fda into bypassing, you know, their regular processes is concerning. and concerning for scientists and doctors like me because then that puts cynicism in terms of other products, during a public health emergency that may come out, including vaccines, that and the safety and efficacy of those products. >> then let's talk about that very thing because the financial times is reporting that the trump administration is

considering fast-tracking a vaccine founded in the uk. they want to get this thing through, surprise, surprise, before the u.s. election. how concerning is that to you especially given how many people straight out of the gate are more and more doubtful of vaccines and you, obviously, know that we need people to take the right vaccines. >> that's right, stephanie. there is a societal cost and an individual cost to doing this. as you know, there's already significant amount of vaccine hesitancy. and if you all of a sudden start bypassing, you know, potentially the country's own regulations in terms of introducing new products, there's a concern because we don't know if the vaccines will be introduced, if they've gone through all the regulatory and data hurdles they need to get through. we'll have to wait and see what the randomized control data around those vaccines is. if the trump administration passes an emergency use

authorization without that large trial data, they may then be making available false hope in these vaccines. they may not be effective and that may hurt people's trust in the future application of a vaccine. >> headlines might give people false hope, but the data doesn't lie. and this virus doesn't care about headlines. doctor, thank you for joining us. you always make us smarter every time you're here. coming up next -- you do not want to go anywhere. any second now, the republican national convention, we've been talking about it all morning, is scheduled to kick off as dozens of former republicans are endorsing -- wait for it -- former vice president joe biden. we'll break down exactly what you can expect to see this week. (vo) with t-mobile for business,

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the republican national convention is seconds away from gaveling in. the four-day event will feature a number of republican lawmakers, conservative voices and members of the trump family. the president was also expected to make an appearance every single night, but it comes as one of the president's top, most effective advisers and someone who has been key to the president's messaging for years is stepping down for the time

being. kellyanne conway announcing she's leaving her post to focus on her family. joining me to discuss, nbc news white house correspondent peter alexander and white house bureau chief for "the washington post," phil rucker. phil, kellyanne conway may be one of the president's best communicators, surrogates. when he won in 2016, she was standing right next to him on that podium. he thanked her personally. will her absence be felt today, and who could you see stepping in to fill this void? >> it may be, steph. kellyanne conway is one of the longest serving aides in the white house to the president. she made history herself as the first female campaign manager of a winning campaign and has been responsible for a lot of the messaging and communications from the president over these last few years. she's taking a back seat to focus on her family. there are only two months left in this campaign so i'm not sure any particular adviser is going to come in to fill that role. but we should keep in mind there

are a number of other people who play similar roles around the president including hope hicks, his longtime communications adviser who is now a counselor inside the white house. >> yes, but does that mean that hope hicks would be filling the void in terms of speaking publicly on behalf of the president? people have seen hope hicks' face. very few have actually heard her voice. >> i am not suggesting that. i'm just saying that there are different people inside the white house right now that can help to try to make up for kellyanne's absence. >> all right, peter. let's talk about the next four days. the dnc last week was all about restoring decency to this country. no doubt the president is going to talk about restoring law and order. he's going to talk about the uptick in crime across certain cities. but how on earth can he do that when the violence that's happening is happening on trump's watch? >> well, stephanie, right.

this is the fundamental contradiction and challenge for this president heading into the next four days where he faces a big gap in terms of the polls, trailing joe biden. not just nationally but in a lot of the swing states. advisers, aides to the president insist this will be an optimistic, positive message over the next several days. the challenge there, obviously, is more than 175,000 americans have died during this presidency due to coronavirus. the unemployment rate stands higher than 10% and 13 million more americans are now out of work right now than they were back in february before the pandemic. nonetheless, the president is focusing, at least tonight and over the next several days othis idea, today being land ofpositi themes but there are contradictions in that. gabbie giffords we heard as the democrats spoke. today, one of the headliners will be the mccloskys. the st. louis couple who

brandished guns at black lives matter protesters as they passed by their home last week. we heard from former presidents and presidential nominees. this week we will hear from none of them. so some real challenges for the president but there will be a constant theme you'll be hearing from the president and from the trumps. a member of his family expected to speak each night. laura trump, his daughter-in-law telling me the president will make an appearance in some form each night. >> so, phil, while the mccloskys are speaking, that's the couple who stood outside and pulled guns in front of protesters at a black lives matter movement, while they're speaking, a lot of other people aren't, okay? former republican senator jeff flake has now joined more than two dozen former gop lawmakers to launch republicans for biden. can you talk about the timing and what this effort is all about? >> yeah, well, i think we saw the beginnings of this last week at the democratic convention where office holders and former

office holders, including former ohio governor john kasich spoke and endorsed bien. now we're seeing flake and more than two dozen former republican members of congress say they're not only not supporting the republican president, donald trump, but they're actively going to endorse democratic candidate joe biden. that's fairly unusual in presidential politics, and it speaks to the degree to which trump has sort of co-opted the republican party and republicans who disagree either with trump's ideology or more frequently disagree with his tactics, with his character, with his rhetoric, have nowhere to go except to support joe biden. >> peter, we know that every election, people vote with their wallets. the president was banking on running on the economy before covid, but even during covid, he still polls better than joe biden on economic issues. given that, with the exception of larry kudlow, why are we not

seeing any business leaders, any influential economists, no one in that universe speaking? >> well, perhaps it's because president trump's the same man who four years ago said, i alone can fix it. he'll focus on that theme in part over the course of the next several days. recent polling shows about 35% of americans right now do not believe the country is in a better position right now than it was four years ago. the president insists that he's fixed the economy once. he says he'll fix it again. of course, that ignores the fact the economy was on an upswing courtesy of president obama for many months in advance of his arrival here. another difference that's notable between these two campaigns, the democratic and republican campaign of donald trump. the democratic platform was hashed out by biden and bernie sanders supporters. the republican platform is basically a page-long, reupping the 2016 platform and saying they'll support donald trump's

america first agenda. whatever the president says, they're behind him. >> phil, here's what i don't get. what else is notable here? no vulnerable gop lawmakers are speaking. i would think if i was running in november and i was a republican, given the president's approval rating from republicans, i would be dying for a chance at that massive national stage when i've got such an important election coming up. >> that's right. a number of these embattled senators, susan collins in maine, martha mcsally, tom tillis, they're not on the list of scheduled speakers at this convention. the one who is, is joanie ernst from iowa. she's facing a tough re-election fight and will be speaking but she's really one of the only vulnerable republicans on the list. most of the other republicans speaking are in very secure districts and have identified themselves firmly as in the

trump fold. >> all right. well, there's going to be a lot to watch this week. thank you both so much. you guys are going to be busy. coming up next -- we've got to talk about what is happening across this country. ravaging wildfires and torrential storms. the gulf coast preparing for not one, but two hurricanes making landfall in almost the exact same spot. [ sigh ] people ask ... what sort of a person should become a celebrity accountant? and, i tell them, "nobody should." hey, buddy. what's the damage? [ on the phone ] i bought it! the waterfall? nope! my new volkswagen. a volkswagen?! i think we're having a breakthrough here. welcome to caesar's palace. thank you. ♪ aso the national eye instituteon did 20 years of clinical studies on a formula only found in preservision.

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acres. meanwhile, the gulf coast is bracing for not one, but two potential hurricanes this morning. 15 years since katrina made landfall. new orleans could get pounded with 40 to 50-mile-an-hour winds and several feet of storm surge when tropical storm marco arrives hours from now with another storm, laura, expected to strengthen into a hurricane and make landfall later this week. nbc's sam brock is there for us now. sam, how are residents preparing for this, two storms? >> steph, good morning. good to be with you. the city of new orleans has invested quite a bit of money to the tune of $15 billion to upgrade surge barriers and levees and flood walls, drainage pumps, all of this since katrina 15 years ago. the marching orders where i am now are for everyone in this flood protection zone to be sheltering in place and avoiding getting out on the roads. marco was downgraded overnight to a tropical storm with about 40-mile-an-hour winds here, but they are kicking up and you can

see lake pontchartrain over my shoulder. the storm surge expected to be several feet. these waters are getting kind of choppy. it's going to be worse along the louisiana coastline. rain and flooding really the primary concerns right now. anywhere between 5 and 10 inches along the coastline. in new orleans, they are expecting three inches of rain. but as you mentioned it, laura is really raising alarm bells at the moment because laura could be dumping more rain. tracking right now as a category 2 but could make landfall between texas and louisiana as a cat 3. we talked to the emergency operations center head here in new orleans about how they're managing this tight time frame between two different systems. >> i would say that's the biggest concern right now is there's going to be a very small window of opportunity. you know, one coming monday and potentially one wednesday. that window of opportunity, 18 to 24 hours to, you know, i guess, recover or absorb the impact of marco. it's going to be limited when we're looking again potentially

at laura. >> now, steph, many of the floodgates here are still open. that's likely to change with the arrival of laura. i am at lake pontchartrain between here and the mississippi river. they're at sea level but everything below that sits underneath it almost like a bowl and one of the reason yes in new orleans when you get heavy rains, that bowl fills right up leading to conditions that are prime for flooding. steph? >> all right, sam, stay safe where you are. that water does not look good. coming up next, we're minutes away from the postmaster general. i told you so much news. minutes from the postmaster general making his case in front of the house. but battleground pennsylvania is already having problems with mail-in voting. i'll be asking the governor of colorado, a state that's had mail-in voting for years and done it successfully. we'll find out if his state is prepared for november and ask him to fact-check a whole lot of the president's claims about mail-in voting.

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even shells represented value. then currency came along. they made it out of copper, gold, silver, wampum. soon people decided to put all that value into a piece of paper, then proceeded to wave goodbye to value, printing unlimited amounts of money as they passed the buck to the future. that's why it's time for digital currency and your investment in the grayscale funds. go digital. go grayscale. we are just minutes away from postmaster general louis dejoy's testimony in the house as mail delays and changes to the u.s. postal service are worrying lawmakers and voters across the country. and the president still sowing seeds of doubt with completely false claims. railing against mail drop boxes calling them a voter security disaster, which they are not.

nbc's maura barrett is in scranton, a city that's already seen the direct impact of postal service changes. what are people telling you there? >> stephanie, i spoke with the vice president of the pennsylvania postal unit here and he says that he's delaying the essential services that americans deserve and he's actually wrd about the intent behind these actions. i asked him what he's wanting to hear from dejoy on the hill today. take a listen to what he told me. >> so he is arbitrarily reducing delivery standards without going through congress like he is supposed to. he's shortening the operational windows in the plants. removing 670 pieces of equipment nationwide. many of them in pennsylvania, including the scranton plant. he's reducing our ability to handle mail volume, if it recovers, god give us out of the

pandemic, and i would like to hear why he's doing that. >> as we look ahead to the election, battleground pennsylvania is doing a book of mail-in ballots for the first time this year. it didn't go so well for them in the primary. ten arrived late, even before the delays, in the mail service, and they didn't report the results until fully until nearly four weeks after the primary. when i asked gallagher about this, he said as far as he's aware on the usps side, there is no plan in place to prepare for that additional influx for mail-in ballots in november. i spoke with the county commissioner here in lackawanna county, he's confident they're going to be able to run the election well, but he did acknowledge we're not going to see any results here in pennsylvania until at least a couple of days after the election. stephanie? >> we're going to need a plan. maura, thank you. i want to bring in a man who has one, governor of colorado, jared polis. i can't imagine when you were

running to be the governor of the state of colorado you thought you would be fact checking the president of the united states on national tv. but alas, here we are. president trump again questioning election drop boxes. he's saying they make it impossible for a -- they make it possible for a person to vote multiple times. your state relies heavily on these boxes. we don't know much about them in other parts of the country. can you explain how safe they are? >> yeah, i can't overstate how strange this sounds to people from colorado, this whole debate, because this is the way we have been voting essentially my whole life. we went to default mail-in ballot in 2013, voters approved it in 2012, 76% of the voters, even before that, though, in the 2000s, majority of voters voted this way, drop boxes are preferable, but 75%, 80% of people use drop boxes because it saves you a postage stamp an you know it is going right to the county clerk, you don't rely on the mail service.

if you vote the last week of the election in colorado, it is too late to mail it, you have to put it in the drop box. they're all over, they're very convenient, they're at grocery stores, county buildings, it is the way we vote. >> so this might be strange for you, and for the people of colorado, because you know these claims are absolutely false. but they're working in terms of sowing doubt or creating chaos. how does one stop that? this election matters. >> yeah, i mean, look, since we implemented mail-in voting for decades now, we have been able to reduce fraud, increase turnout and as important for people with busy lives increase convenience, right? a lot of people, my gosh, the polling station closes at 7:00, i can't get there after work, i have to pick up my kids, in colorado, we have a lot of initiatives on the ballot, people like to research those and cast informed ballots at home. so it is an obvious innovation that i think will spread nationally, even without the pandemic, vote by mail has been growing by leaps and bounds and more and more states. it is a popular way to vote.

we also allow people to vote on election day at voting centers. just so you know, that's less than 1% of people choose it vote that way because it is less convenient for folks. >> what is your advice for states who for the first time are relying heavily on mail in voting? >> i think it is great that, you know, that people are pursuing that direction. i this i even without the pandemic more and more states were going that way. it becomes more important when people are afraid to go around others or to expose themselves are, particularly if they're at risk. it is a convenient way to exercise our rights and we should oppose the efforts by president trump or anybody to disparage our right to vote, legally, securely, and really that's what the vote by mail process, drop boxes and postal service delivering the ballots is all about. >> governor, last time you were with me, we talked about elijah mcclain. today marks one year since he was confronted by police

officers in aurora, colorado, a confrontation that led to his death. since then, we're a year out, no arrests have been made in the case. can you tell us why? >> this is really tragic, one year anniversary of elijah mcclain's death. just a couple of months ago, i assigned an independent investigator, our attorney general, to investigate any crimes that were committed, either by the police officers or the paramedics. i have full confidence that this independent process will lead to a prosecution if there is enough evidence to convict. and i really hope there is, the family deserves closure. there is a civil lawsuit as you know, stephanie, the burden is less in a civil lawsuit, this he simply need preponderance of evidence rather than beyond a reasonable doubt. i talked to the parents. there is no bringing elijah back. we need to make sure his legacy is seared in all of our souls and leaves the meaningful police reforms like the ones we already

signed, i already signed in colorado, that ban chokeholds, establish civil liability and require cameras for all officers. >> let's talk about the natural disaster your state is facing, four major wildfires have been ravaging there for weeks. can you give us the latest? what kind of damage has been done? >> well, just today we're able to reopen highway 70 in glenwood canyon. this has been one of our largest fires in state history, along with three others, it is our air quality, you know, it has been touch and go the last few weeks, depending where people live and where the wind is blowing. we're deployed all of our natural resources including national guard to help with evacuations. over 2200 firefighters from around the country. and i've been very pleased to see their pandemic protocols, they're in tents, don't have a common mess hall, common showers, we are doing it in a safe way, we don't want disaster to set off another round of the other.

>> we certainly don't. you have a lot going on. good luck to all the students in the state of colorado, they're going back to school, some virtually, some in person, we wish good health and safety to all of you. governor, thank you for joining me on this very busy hour. thank you for watching. don't forget, try to do something nice for someone today, try to help somebody out. i'm stephanie ruhle, thank you for watching, my dear friend and colleague hallie jackson picks up breaking news coverage on the other side of the break as we follow the republican national convention and the postmaster general as he faces the house oversight committee. busy, busy day in politics. oversight committee. busy, busy day in politics

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we are following breaking news on several fronts right as we come on the air, including new protests erupting in wisconsin, after a white police officer repeatedly shot a black man in the back. on the gulf coast and west coast, twin tropical storms and out of control wildfires are threatening millions. and against that backdrop, president trump and his party right here in d.c. are starting what you could call an urgent salvage mission with the republican national convention beginning right now. you're looking live at charlotte where the state roll call is set to start any minute to renominate donald trump as he gets ready to leave the white house and led to north carolina. no stop on his schedule here, but sources tell us he may drop into that roll call. one of two live events we're watching this hour. along with the house oversight committee on capitol hill, gaveling into session, lawmakers